Signalgate is a story about the country’s highest-ranking national security officials gathering on a hackable message platform to discuss top-secret plans for military airstrikes on the Houthis, and about one of them “accidentally” including a leading foreign-affairs journalist. 

The story has many angles to it, but this one’s getting lost: It looks like the commander-in-chief was awol. Maybe that’s why they’re lying.

The US secretary of defense, the US secretary of state, the vice president of the United States, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the director of national intelligence – all of them, some of them under oath, have said that there’s no way, no how any of that information contained in that Signal group chat was classified.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard, under oath, told a Senate panel Tuesday: “there was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group.” 

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, also under oath, told the same Senate panel: “my communications in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.” 

The president said: “it wasn’t classified information.”

Pete Hegseth was more direct: “Nobody was texting war plans.”

Surprise! Per CNN: 

“The information Pete Hegseth disclosed … was highly classified at the time he wrote it, especially because the operation had not even started yet, according to a US defense official familiar with the operation and another source who was briefed on it afterward.

“The updates Hegseth was giving in the Signal chat were the kind of real-time play-by-play that a commander would be giving to the president in a highly classified setting as the operation unfolded.

“These are operational plans that are highly classified in order to protect the service members,” the defense official said.

A third source familiar with the matter said they saw documents sent within the Pentagon about the operation, which were marked classified and included the same information Hegseth disclosed in the chat about specific weapons platforms and timing.

“It was classified when it was shared below the principal level.”

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They were lying. They knew they were lying. 

Everyone knows it.

But why?

There are many ways to speculate, of course. I’m choosing this one today: The commander-in-chief wasn’t involved. Indeed, the country’s highest-ranking national security officers guessed what he wanted, planned for something dramatic, then filled him in after the fact. 

I don’t know what other conclusion to draw from screenshots of the chat featured in Jeffrey Goldberg’s follow-up piece in The Atlantic.

There’s a conspicuously open question in the air. 

At one point, JD Vance worries whether Trump understands that attacking the Houthis would benefit Europe. Trump wants to “send a message,” Vance says, but he’s “not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.” Then he says to Hegseth: “if you think we should do it, let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again. Let’s just make sure our messaging is tight here.”

Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But [National Security Adviser] Mike [Waltz] is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

Then Stephen Miller, that White House putz, enters the chat to end all questioning. He says: “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make it clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement.”

To recap: 

• Vance doubts that Trump knows what he wants or why, except for some vague notion about sending a message to someone.
• Vance asks Hegseth if he thinks the military operation should move forward and if so, Vance gives it his blessing. 
• Hegseth says yes, no one else can do it, and if they guess wrong, they’re safe due to Trump’s “24 hours of decision space.”
• Both are somehow satisfied that they guessed correctly when that White House putz brings word from Trump, not in the form of a direct order, however, but an interpretation of one: “As I heard it.”

It’s here that we should recall the absence of a figure who’d normally be involved in war-planning. In the chat, Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Christopher Grady, is nowhere to be found.

I think I know why. 

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There’s no way, no how the country’s highest-ranking military officer would stand by while the other members of the “principals committee” guessed what the commander-in-chief wanted. There’s no way, no how he would have been satisfied with an interpretation of an order by a mere adviser. More likely, he would have told Stephen Miller what his predecessor, Mark Milley, once told him: “Shut the fuck up, Stephen.” 

In additional to objecting to the fact that they were planning airstrikes on unsecured channels that the Russians might be spying on, Admiral Grady would probably have demanded more exacting standards from the others in the group chat, especially an unambiguously clear order to proceed from the president, and with that, he’d spoil all the fun.

So he wasn’t included. 

They were lying. They knew they were lying. Everyone knows it. All that’s missing is an admission of guilt, which the press corps can be counted on to pursue. And every time reporters ask about classified information, they’re going to lie again (with new and more sensational lies!), distracting us from the most consequential angle of this story.

The president was awol.